Botulinum toxin, the active ingredient in Botox®, is used to temporarily weaken the muscles in the face that cause wrinkles. This not only gets rids of lines in the face, it also limits the body’s ability to move the muscles in the face and express emotion.
The study, which was administered by Barnard College in New York, found that people who have a limited ability to physically express emotion might in turn feel less emotional. Botox® prevents feedback to the brain about such facial expressivity, therefore tricking the brain into thinking that there is less emotion felt during an event.
Joshua Davis, a psychologist at Barnard, and his colleagues showed people emotionally charged videos both before and after they were injected with Botox®. After viewing the videos, the subjects that were injected with Botox® exhibited a significant decrease in the strength of the emotional experience as opposed to the control group.
The study findings tie into a long-standing idea in psychology that dates back to Charles Darwin. The facial feedback hypothesis, which was later developed by William James, simply states that facial movement can influence emotional experience.
If simply frowning can ruin your mood, then not being able to frown should make you a happier person. Now that’s something to smile about!
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